Heading into their game against the St. Ignatius Falcons here Saturday, the Muskie girls’ soccer team knew going in that they could lose by two goals and still win the NWOSSAA crown.
But the road to the all-Ontarios took a detour when the Muskies surrendered two goals in the final eight minutes to lose 4-1, giving the Thunder Bay squad the title and a trip to Pembroke this week.
The Muskies, who opened the three-team, round-robin Saturday morning with a 3-0 win over Manitouwadge, were outplayed by St. Ignatius, who pulled out the miracle when Suzanne Renda scored her third goal of the game with mere seconds left in regulation time.
Because all three teams finished at 1-1 (Manitouwadge had blanked St. Ignatius 1-0 earlier in the day), the 4-1 victory gave the Falcons the best goals for and against differential, which was the tie-breaker.
“I am very, very happy and ecstatic [about the win],” said St. Ignatius coach Domenic Migliazza. “We didn’t want it to go this far against a good team like Fort Frances.”
He admitted they changed their offensive attack, switching to a 4-3-3 system in order to create more offence, after their surprise loss to Manitouwadge.
And that change worked wonders for St. Ignatius, who dominated the Muskies throughout the game–and clearly outchanced them in the second half when they pressed for more goals.
“They outplayed us. We knew they were going to have a good team,” said a sombre Struchan Gilson after the game. “We did not go into a defensive shell but maybe in the back of their minds they [the players] thought they had this won.”
The Muskies clearly had trouble with the Falcons’ attack, allowing the St. Ignatius forwards to walk in on keeper Angela Shute and produce one quality scoring chance after another.
Gilson hinted the fact his team never really had to endure pressure during the year may have cost them in the final game.
Still, despite the disappointing loss, the Muskies enjoyed another successful season, which saw them dominate their NorWOSSA opponents all spring.
“It’s disappointing because we really, really wanted to win this,” said Carrie Selin, a speedy winger who created several quality chances during the NWOSSAA tournament.
“We had a lot of team chemistry [this year] and we always played our hearts out.”
St. Ignatius opened the scoring just five minutes in when Renda drilled a shot past Shute. But the Muskies tied it at 1-1 around the 25-minute mark of the first half when Laureen Cousineau netted scored her fourth goal in two games (she had scored all three goals in the win over Manitouwadge).
But the Falcons regained their one-goal advantage about nine minutes later, scoring a controversial goal when a St. Ignatius player bumped into Shute and dislodged the ball after she had made the initial save.
Then they scored the two goals late in the second half to ice the victory.
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